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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The bonecracker will see you now

First a note on pregnancy mind: Everyone talks about pregnancy brain. How you can get stupid because the pregnancy is occupying all your brain cells. Ho ho ho, that's funny. Right up until you find yourself saying "Lemme just go to the bathroom and then we can skedaddle to Target." SKEDADDLE?!? WTF? That's not funny! That's not absent-minded! That's crazy talk! Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post…

Supplanting my cadre of other specialists – deep tissue massage therapist, jaw and wrist physical therapists – I've now added a chiropractor. Or as I like to call him, Bonecracker McGee. I went to see him because the round ligaments between my belly button and pubic bone had begun hurting. All the time. As much as I want Baby Skullhead's to stay put until she's finished baking, I prefer not to spend that entire time in pain.

After a session or two, ligament pain disappeared, leaving behind…a whole new set of pains that had only gone unnoticed because the damn ligaments hurt so much. Yes, third trimester is kick-ass, just like the pamphlet says. So I told Bonecracker that it felt like my pelvis bone hurt. Of course, I'm thinking he'll pat me on the head and explain that it is just my tendons or some such thing causing me pain. But what does he do? He looks me dead in my eye and says, "Yep, that sounds about right. Your pubic symphysis to be exact, where the separation will occur so the baby can pass through your pelvis. Here, let me show you –" and then he whips a pelvis skeleton from behind his back and starts pointing. At this point I'm still staring at him open-mouthed, like WTF? My bones are hurting now? And where the fuck did that skeleton come from?

He's chirping happily away about pain management and I suddenly hear the word "ice" come out of his mouth. Once again, I clarify. "Let me get this clear. You want me to put ice on my neither regions? Ice. On my sensitive bits." Yes, you read that right, ice on my neithers. Just what every girl wants to hear. I tried to explain to him that this was my hoo-ha and I did not appreciate the suggestion, whereupon he smugly informed me that many people don't follow the icing instructions because heat is more comfortable. However it is just not as effective for this type of pain and he's clear from our previous sessions that I'm the kind of person who will try anything because my goal is improvement, not comfort. This is like my third session and he's already pulled my number, because of course he's right. If I wanted to be comfortable, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant to begin with. So of course I let him know how much I appreciate that he's been paying attention and getting to know me.

Oho! I have a whole post coming up about the "babies are cute" meme 'cause that cuteness only kicks in when they stop being little wrinkly looking newborns! I've seen the birth videos, they can't lie to me now! :)